A Amazônia brasileira: formação histórico-territorial e perspectivas para o século XXI

Abstract

This article discusses the changes in the process of territorial constitution of Amazon region, featuring as main objectives the geographicity of religious missions, the Politics of Pombal government and the symbolic value of spatial forms, the African heritage in Amazon, the rubber economy and the reorganization of the territory from the second half of twentieth century and perspectives for 21st century. We identify that this region was conquered and occupied by the Portuguese between the seventeenth and nineteenth century, when they used various strategies for occupying the territory - fortress, religious missions, the policy of Pombal and after that the rubber economy. In the twentieth century, the strategy of circulation through Amazon rivers gives place to roads, which results in a region marked by socioeconomic and environmental contradictions, as consequences of the historical and territorial model of an excluding development.